Friday, May 28, 2004 - 12:00 a.m. Pacific
 

	ANAI
	Guides and volunteers collect eggs from a leatherback sea turtle on a beach in Costa Rica last year. Sea turtles usually lay eggs at night; the flash photo was taken after the turtle finished laying her eggs, in order not to disturb her.

Night patrols protect sea turtles on remote Costa Rican coast
On a moonlit beach in Costa Rica, a female sea turtle — a low, dark shape easily mistaken for a storm-tossed log — was breathing in what sounded for all the world like Lamaze puffs...  [12:00 A.M. May 28, 2004]

Costa Rica: Sights, sounds linger from tiny 'Turtle Town'
Everything was fine until the vampire bat in the bathtub. Then I kind of lost it. To that point, the surprises we encountered in traveling to a remote... [12:00 A.M. May 28, 2004]

Under the spell of astonishing Belize
Shadows flicker on the cave walls as I first walk, then slip and finally slide on my rear down the mud-slick passageway, toward the center of the Earth. I squeeze past boulders, climb rebar ladders and grasp knotted rope lines...  [12:00 A.M. Jun. 19, 2004]

Peru: Trekking to see the ruins of Machu Picchu
For four days we'd schlepped over mountain passes in Peru's Andes, muddy trails and slippery rocks. My head was aching from a collision with a tree branch, my left cheek filled...  [12:00 A.M. Feb. 08, 2004]

A jolt of coffee culture — and caution — in remote Colombia
The valley narrows as we move east toward the Andes on horseback, rolling pasture rising into virgin jungle. Along the ridgelines high above us march lines of swaying wax palms...  [12:00 A.M. Feb. 08, 2004]

South America: Too often forgotten by U.S. travelers
With 13 countries stretching across 6. 9 million square miles, South America offers just about any scene a visitor could want. But for all its variety, U.S. travelers often overlook the...  [12:00 A.M. Feb. 08, 2004]

Book tour of Paraguay portrays a landlocked nation of extremes
Some people go to Europe. Others try China. A few even make it as far as Antarctica. But when was the last time anyone of your acquaintance said: "Well, I'm off to Paraguay. " British writer John...  [12:00 A.M. Feb. 08, 2004]

Chile: A literary sojourn to the sea
The weather-beaten ship's hatch that Pablo Neruda used as a desk sits majestically in one corner. The tuxedo the famed Chilean poet wore when he accepted the 1971 Nobel Prize hangs...  [12:00 A.M. Feb. 08, 2004]

Brazil: Siren song of the beach calls visitors back to Natal
Marinated prawns, a bottle of beer with ice stuck to it, and surf whispering on dusk-blushed shore: It's what I call the Holy Trinity.  [12:00 a.m. Jan. 2, 2004]

A journey into Bolivia
Filthy from Amazon jungle sweat and diseased with mosquito bites, Papacho and I huddle under a small blue tarp, smoking cigarettes and drinking river-water coffee. We wait for a break in the storm so we can get on with the evening's entertainment: taking mug shots of crocodiles.  [12:00 a.m. Oct. 10, 2003]

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Dramatic scenery, market in La Paz are trip highlights

In Chile, the ski season heats up in summer
As I peered out the window from my makeshift bunk across two airline seats, the snowy outlines of our destination began to emerge from the predawn grayness. The Andes.  [12:00 a.m. Jan. 18, 2001]

Peru: Hot debate rages over Machu Picchu facilities
Machu Picchu remains one of the best clues to understanding the Inca empire that ruled a domain that extended north through modern Colombia and south to Argentina and Chile before the Spanish conquest in the 16th century.  [12:00 a.m. Aug. 15, 1999]

Argentina: Pleasures of the flesh
All through the continent, meat is king. But the dual capitals of the carnivore are Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and Buenos Aires in Argentina.  [12:00 a.m. April 18, 1998]

Ecuador: Following faint traces of the Royal Inca Road
The Royal Inca Road has needed repairs for most of the last 450 years, ever since the Spanish conquest of the Incan empire. This 3,250-mile highway, once an engineering marvel that ran from Argentina to Colombia, has been reduced mainly to legend.  [12:00 a.m. May 25, 1997]

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